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New personalized city web access: My.Seattle.Gov launches

Give it a test drive – the city’s just taken the wraps off on My.Seattle.Gov, a customizable way to access everything they’ve put online. Click ahead for the official announcement:

Today Mayor Mike McGinn and Seattle City Councilmember Bruce Harrell announced the launch of My.Seattle.Gov, a new public engagement and customer service website that allows Seattle’s residents to create and customize their own unique Seattle.gov homepage from a selection of widgets.

My.Seattle.Gov will make it easier to receive information from the City and do business with the City. Users can add a widget to receive important crime stats for their neighborhood, have quick access to multiple news feeds, see what events are occurring in their community, and view Seattle Channel videos.

“Last Saturday we held an open house at City Hall to express our commitment to open effective government and to better connect the public with their government. Today we launch My.Seattle.Gov as the latest step in the process of making government more accessible through technology,” said Mayor Mike McGinn. “This tool gives users the power to customize their experience of the services and information available through the City’s website.”

“The launch of My.Seattle.Gov is just the beginning in our efforts to completely transform the way Seattle communicates and does business online with its residents,” said Councilmember Bruce Harrell, chair of the Energy, Technology and Civil Rights committee. “2011 will be an exciting year as we introduce new and robust online tools to enhance customer service and optimize communication with the public.”

A new feature of My.Seattle.Gov is the Single Sign-On system. This gives residents the ability to log in just once to access all the city services they need in the way that works best for them. After an extensive review of the City’s online registration system, Councilmember Harrell advanced the requirement of Single Sign-On. The City has more than 50 available online registration pages throughout City departments. This was not effective for the public and not efficient for the City.

The major integration of utility billing, permitting, customer service requests for potholes or graffiti, and support for mobile devices will be coming soon.

My.Seattle.Gov is just the latest step in improving customer service for Seattle residents. Begin personalizing a My.Seattle.Gov home page by clicking on the link from the Seattle.Gov homepage or go to My.Seattle.Gov.

In addition to the redesign of the City’s homepage and launch of My.Seattle.Gov, the following are coming soon to enhance the City’s online presence and resident experience:

· Seattle Speaks, a new tool where constituents and City officials can discuss issues in an open and online forum;
· Ask.Seattle.Gov, a new site for Seattle residents to directly engage decision-makers in city government.

My.Seattle.Gov is only the latest website launch from the City, building on the launch of Data.Seattle.Gov, a site where data sets from city government are posted to promote transparency.

The council-public online discussion forum sounds good in theory, but the council never did answer or acknowledge any of the 100s of budget ideas it solicited and took in last year at http://www.seattlecitycouncil.ideascale.com
There’s no reason to imagine city officials will care a whit about the public comments received on a new interactive web forum, but I hope I’m proved wrong.

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